TOGAF 9 Released

Posted by Gavin Terrill on Feb 04, 2009

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The Open Group have announced the release of TOGAF 9.0. TOGAF (The Open Group Architecture Framework) has been in development since the mid 90's and is "a standard for assisting in the acceptance, production, use, and maintenance of architectures". Andrew Josey, Director of Standards within the Open Group, states in "An Inroduction to TOGAF 9.0" (registration required):

TOGAF 9 can be used for developing a broad range of different enterprise architectures. TOGAF complements, and can be used in conjunction with, other frameworks that are more focused on specific deliverables for particular vertical sectors such as Government, Telecommunications, Manufacturing, Defense, and Finance. The key to TOGAF is the method – the TOGAF Architecture Development Method (ADM) – for developing an enterprise architecture that addresses business needs.

TOGAF describes an enterprise architecture from four perspectives:

Architecture Type	Description
Business Architecture	The business strategy, governance, organization, and key business processes.
Data (Information) Architecture	The structure of an organization's logical and physical data assets and data management resources.
Application Architecture	A blueprint for the individual application systems to be deployed, their interactions, and their relationships to the core business processes of the organization.
Technology Architecture	The logical software and hardware capabilities that are required to support the deployment of business, data, and application services. This includes IT infrastructure, middleware, networks, communications, processing, and standards.

Major changes in the release include:

• A more modular structure to provide greater usability and allow for incremental adoption
• A content framework to promote greater consistency
• Extended guidance on partitioning, the "architecture repository" and the capability framework
• Supporting material for the usage of ADM in specific scenarios such as iteration, SOA and security architecture
• Additional detail in the execution of the ADM in the Preliminary phase, and using capability based planning for the Opportunities & Solutions and Migration Planning phases.

Reactions to the release have been positive. Nick Malik provides a detailed break down of the new features which he describes as "Substantial and Deep Improvements".

Dana Gardner reports:

TOGAF 9 is showing the maturity for much wider adoption. The Architecture Development Method (ADM) can be applied to SOA, security, cloud, hybrids, and federated services ecologies. There is ease in migration from earlier TOGAFs, or from a start fresh across multiple paths of elements of EA. Indeed, TOGAF 9’s modular structure now allows all kinds of organizations and cultures to adapt TOGAF in ways that suit specific situations and IT landscapes.

Ron Tolido, of the Capgemini Consulting backed CTO Blog, positively gushes when he describes it as "a breakthrough in the world of Enterprise and IT Architecture":

Consider it: the role of architecture as a crucial tool to put strategy into practice is becoming more and more prominent. After all, architecture always has been the antidote to complexity, misalignment and lack of direction. And these are exactly the phenomena we have to deal with in the typical business / IT climate of today.

TOGAF 9 may be downloaded here, and is available under a 90 day free personal license for evaluation purposes.

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   Never Mind the Architecture Frameworks: Here's TOGAF 9

   by The Rasmussen Report .

   TOGAF 9 is a step forward for enterprise architecture. TOGAF 9 presents the first public enterprise architecture framework to cover the full spectrum of content, process and needed capabilities. Now, companies can "Never mind the architecture frameworks" and just use TOGAF.
   
   - The Rasmussen Report at rasmussenreport.wordpress.com

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